Changes to the core game

I remember the first time I saw ragdoll physics. It changed the game for me.

I remember the first time I saw a sewer map transition into an office map. That changed the game for me.

I remember the first time I saw Oil Slick arrow get lighted by a fire power. That changed the game for me.

I remember when they introduced respecs. That changed the game for me.

I remember when mayhem missions came out. That changed the game for me.

What changed the game for you?

I wish they'd focus more on game changing things that alter the very core of the game instead of just reskinning powers and making costumes and adding more incarnate garbage.

How about powers that absorb certain types of enemy damage and actually make it heal you or something? How about enemies who can only be killed with heal powers? How about powers that reflect control powers back at the caster?

How about powers that pull enemies forward, towards you, instead of knocking them down or back, away from you.

How about more of the Oil Slick idea, with other combinations of powers.

I keep coming back to this game and seeing the same "new" stuff in different wrappers.

I remember Enhancement Diversification. That changed the game, and in the long term, for the better. But man did it hurt the first couple of months. I gave up on a few characters because of it.

I remember when Inventions and Salvage was added. That changed the game a lot, since we now had both loot and an auction house. The new IO builds we could make were fun, and in some cases, changed the entire archetype, such as the Perma-Domination Dominators. Initially, I was skeptic of adding loot to CoH, and while I'm still not a loot fan, I respect how salvage and recipes work in CoH. I can live with that kind of loot. (And perhaps profit a bit fro the auction house while I'm at it.)

I remember my first Rogue. Seeing my former villain in Atlas Park was a little surreal. Seeing her in the Shadow Shard was just wrong.

And more recently, I remember getting my first level shift. Yeah, that level 50 minion? Cons blue now. Nice. Shame the trials get so repetitive, but I hope the new Dark Astoria will help a little with its alternate route.

CoH has changed quite a bit these last 21½ issues...

(Careful with the subjective comments. While I personally agree with you on most of it, those comments will be what takes this thread from a civilized discussion to an argument or worse.)

The following phrases have "changed the game for me" (or some derivative) attached to them

Being able to customize the color of my powers.
Being able to choose different animations on some powers.
Being able to switch sides with "gray alignments."
Inherent Fitness.
Starting any regular archetype on any side.


I will limit myself to three things I would like to see happen that could change the game (in my opinion of course):

-Diversifying and greatly expanding the number of Ancillary Power Pools per archetype.
-Developing new travel power pools, or modifying the current ones to allow for greater customization (permanent jet packs, jump boots/packs, alternate running animations, etc.).
-Break down the War Walls (adjacent zone travel would be akin to Praetoria).

I hated it when ED happened and did quit until August 2010.
Now, I love IO's and IO sets but not so much the ATIOs, Purples and PvPs.

The Alignment and Tips missions dramatically changed how I play as completing them are the central focus of every character. With about 200 banked A-Merits, I enjoy the feeling of being able to get whatever I want from the system.

Another play changer is totally avoiding the Incarnate trials and finding alternate ways to solo play my characters into gaining (stealing) some of the Incarnate powers. I really really really really loathe gimmickry tarnished content.

Over the past month, I've come to a new appreciation for the Mission Architect and all the creative possibilities there. Not the Fire Farm crap, but the real content that is often very imaginative and better written than the official stuff. All my new characters go straight to AE at level 1 and have more fun and are better rewarded with solo play than anywhere else in those first 10 or so levels.

Super-sidekicking changed the game for me.
Inspiration combining changed the game for me.
Changing self and team buffs to not root the player changed the game for me.
Changing many single-target buffs to team buffs changed the game for me.

Signing in to the game the first time changed my life! I was amazed. Zapping a random hellion in Atlas and I felt like a big kid again. That feeling remains wiht me almost 6 years later

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Awsome. You guys have mentioned some things that have changed the game for me too and I didn't even realize it

On Tuesday evening, I took delivery of my first desktop in all the time I've been playing City of Heroes.

So for the first time, I could run the program with all it's settings.

Ultra Mode changed the game for me.

I remember getting kicked from a BAF trial just before NS and Seige went down just because some jerk disagreed with me, that changed the game for me - and my subscription.

I can't talk about changes to the core game overall since I've only been around since Going Rogue, but it did change the way I look at both attacks in games ((No auto-attack)) and in minion/pet classes. It'd always been a dream of mine to have my own personal army...and City of Heroes made that a reality. Thank you, CoH!

Do you know what changed the game for me?

Capes. Samuel Tow had always been intended to have a cape - a cloak, actually, but I could never do that. as soon as I gave him one, he was finally correct to concept.

Weapon customization. Before, every weapon character I'd ever make would be exactly like every other one, and they'd all use medieval weapons for the most part. With Weapon Customization, I was suddenly able to make a whole host of different characters, and they could all use the weapons appropriate to their concept. It made it possible to have technological swordsmen, just as an idle example.

Power customization. This was the big turning point. Before that, my characters were only ever my own when they were posing for a screenshot. As soon as they acted, they were no longer what I'd intended for them to be. With power custimization, my characters were my own in posing and in action, and indeed in every way I could think of for them to BE mine. That was amazing.

The Vanguard pack. Even with weapon customization, I couldn't make all that many characters, because I hated most of the weapons I had access to. The Vanguard pack gave me access to energy weapons, and this alone has created at least five or six new characters or revamped old ones just by itself.

Wings and tails. Before we had wings, I didn't think I'd ever need them. Once I tried, I could never go back. Armoured angels, winged bunnies, reptillian insect aliens, flying robots, and now ancient automatons with dire instead of wings. Does it get any better?

Cross-faction archetypes. No longer were all my heroes forced to be Scrappers even when it didn't make any sense. No longer my villains prevented from being Scrappers. All of a sudden, there was no longer a pointless limit, and I was forced to decide who was what AT based on concept, as opposed to on whatever was available. And that's impressive.

The Stalker changes, back before and right now. When it was first introduced, the Stalker AT was garbage. These changes made it worth playing, and they're continuing to get better. My ultimate hope is that one day I will stop feeling like I'm cheating myself by playing my Stalkers, and that day feels like it's around the corner. Without these changes, none of my many Stalkers would exist.

The Praetorian Clockwork set. Have you ever noticed how we don't have any costume pieces that suggest our torsos aren't actually clothes/armour over a human body? Well, the Clockwork chest does. Clockwork robots have only a thin metal spine surrounded by metal armature that you can see through. It makes for a visual that's both a little disturbing and at the same time immensely cool. That was the first time I started thinking about my characters in three dimensions.

Titan Weapons. This was something I've wanted since as far back as I remember. Getting it was a dream come true, and it has such a variety of weapon types that I can't seem to stop coming up with concepts for it.

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As far as I'm concerned, the game doesn't need to get any more complex. It's fine as it is, even too complex for my tastes. If anything, I'd like to see tons more costumes, weapons and locations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Oro portals. Especially before the tram/ferry changes. Being able to get to a 'safe' zone, from any location, buy and sell stuff, then go to any of the common transport hubs. Take it for granted now, but when it was new, it made a massive difference to getting about, especially for tfs.
Add in the ability to flashback and get a lot of badges, like accolade ones. Don't forget a way to instantly get to areas on zones that the transport/bases dont go to, Such as being able to start a flashback for the Cim arcs, and get there instantly.

I'm not sure there's a single thing that radically changed the game for me, although the invention system did cause me to radically rethink how I think about builds.

I can say that City of Heroes in general has in many ways spoiled me for all MMOs that come afterward. I've played something like fifteen to twenty MMOs since CoH launched, and while some were good and some were bad, there are certain things about City of Heroes that colors my view of them in a way very difficult to objectively circumvent. For example:

1. Travel powers and basic movement. Seriously, just about every first-person MMO I've played has a system of movement where a rock is an impenetrable barrier. War Walls may be an annoying game fiction, but in City of Heroes I can go from anywhere to anywhere else that is accessible at all by simply moving there. I leap over fences. I just plain fly over buildings. I jump from the bottom to the top of cliffs. And it is always jarring when I switch to most other MMOs and I can *see* it, but can't actually *move to it*.

Not to mention: spending most of your time jogging slower than you can in real life. It sometimes borders on the pathetic unless the scenery is really, really *really* good.


2. Global cooldown. Here, we throw hissy fits over weapon redraw and being rooted, but in most MMOs attacks have global cooldown timers. That means when you use power X, *all* (or most) powers become unavailable for a certain amount of time afterward. This allows the designers to enforce a specific dps rating for each attack, and related strengths for other powers. Having powers available, but having to stand around doing *nothing* because you're waiting for a global cooldown timer to expire is so opposite of the free-wheeling anything goes fast paced power activation system in City of Heroes that it can be down-right grating to play any other combat system. And keep in mind this comes from someone who can explain chapter and verse on *why* global cooldowns are there and why they are considered good game balancing tools.


3. Power diversity. Recently I've started playing another MMO. I can't mention which MMO I'm swinging light sabers in due to the forum rules, but suffice to say its a recently launched MMO. And while I beta tested this MMO, its still relatively new to me. And not one day into playing this MMO I found myself on a team of similar class characters. And I found that *almost every spawn* we were all doing exactly the same things, over and over again. Seriously: players of this MMO will know what I mean when I say leap, sweep, attack. It can get pretty blatant, because in this particular MMO which is actually a pretty entertaining one overall, everyone from the same class has basically the exact same powers. There are skill trees that can distinguish players, but they are more like invention slotting than radical power differences.

We have some homogeneity in City of Heroes, and you do find people with similar builds, but we don't just have fourteen archetypes, we have hundreds of different powerset combinations, and even a team full of energy blasters rarely fights in exactly the same way We always want more diversity, and its something we should always strive for, but the amount we already have is simply staggering when compared to other games.


4. Costumes and appearance customization. There's just no question we have one of the best, if not the best character customizer. We have years of built up options, and we also have a philosophy of non-functional appearance: our gear doesn't change what we look like for the most part. This means we have both a wide range of possible appearances and the freedom to pick whichever one we want without affecting our abilities. In this other MMO I won't name, I actually bought a hat which would increase my armor rating, which would therefore increase my defensive ability somewhat. I bought it, equipped it, and then almost fell out of my chair when I saw it on my character. It looked like an origami sculpture was attacking my head, and winning. I thought about it for a while, then unequipped it. I would basically rather be dead than wear that thing.

Because I'm spoiled, and this game spoiled me. I can fight in a suit of armor, in a bikini, in a suit and tie, in leather straps. If the hat's ugly, I don't wear the hat.


5. Chat. Ours is good. Everyone else's sucks. Period the end.

Ok, that other MMO I can't name? If you forget the comands to chat they have a selector, just like we do. You can basically do the equivalent of talking local, sending tells, talking on the main global channels. Guess what's not there, and I only found this out the first time I needed to do it and it wasn't there. Talk to your team mates.

Guess it must have slipped their minds.


I'm not knocking any other MMO, in particular this other MMO I mention is actually entertaining and they do a lot of things right. Conversely, we do a lot of things wrong, some of them spectacularly so. But its nevertheless true that what we do right we do really right, and so much so its actually jarring to see those things done so wrong in more modern MMOs.

I have to agree with Arcana here - City of Heroes has spoiled me. There's a very good reason I'm still here seven years later despite how much I complain. City of Heroes has simply developed into something special. Whether this was because the developers had the vision to break the EQ/DAOC mould or whether because someone messed up and fell over backwards into a successful game, I cannot say, but the fact remains that ANY other MMO I try ultimately falls short of what City of Heroes can do. Some can do specific things better, but none can do as many things as well.

And, really, damn near every other MMO I try these days comes off like a WoW clone. Even Star Wars has that three-rectangle skill tree. Feh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Being able to tweak your difficulty changed the game for me. Especially being able to not have bosses while soloing. It made a world of difference to my weaker damage dealing characters, made them fun to play than XP debt magnets.

Global Friends lists. Now I could find out when my friends were playing on another server.

The consignment market. Influence shortages went away once money bags could buy my drops for big bucks, even if I wasn't asking big bucks for them.

This is my first, and so far only MMO.

IOs were definitely a game changer for me. I started about a year and a half before they were introduced, and once I figured out all the tricks to making your character awesome, I took it and ran with it.

Now I have characters that can do all kinds of ridiculous things. AV soloing? Check. RWZ Challenge? Check. RWZ Challenge on a blaster? Check. Giant Monster soloing? Check. All of which would have been patently impossible without IOs.

Knowing that I can make my Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper unique among Broadsword/Dark Armor scrappers via how I slot him makes the game that much better for me. Before IOs, well, if you saw one scrapper with a specific powerset, you pretty much saw them all, because the powers chosen tended to be very very similar. With IOs, I can have the exact same powers chosen as another character and they will have completely different capabilities and strengths because of the sets I chose to slot.

Fitness at level 2 changed the game for me as well. No longer do I have to plan my build around taking 3 specific powers by level 20. I can actually take all my primary and secondary choices instead of feeling the need tio cram in the Fitness pool.

And the last thing that changed the game for me is: Ninja Run. If I don't want, or can't fit in a travel power, I don't feel like I'm stuck Sprinting everywhere. I still take a true travel power quite frequently, but A) I don't feel like I have to, and B) I don't have to take it right away.

Inventions has been, and still are, the single biggest game changer for me. Tinkering with builds in Mid's creates the sort of problems I enjoy solving, and I have agonized for hours over the placement of a single slot, weighing all possible advantages and disadvantages. So much of what makes the game enjoyable for me now did not show up until Issue 9.

Being able to unlock capes for ALL characters via paragon market was such a huge thing for me I never expected.

City Traveler changed everything before that.

Tier 5 Travel Powers changed things for me. Sure, I haven't used Burnout, and Spring Attack is primarily in my build to get me into position for Inferno while limiting the chance I'll get killed before firing it off, but Afterburner and Long Range Teleport have finally completed a few of my concepts (The arcanist who only really follows physics and silly things like aerodynamics and wind resistance when it's convenient; the PPD officer with the robotic arm, leg, and eye who has a mutant power that allows her to tap into the various teleportation grids around the city; The pro-wrestler who may accidentally be the incarnation of some forgotten god, and has muscles strong enough to catapult him into orbit).

A conversation with a friend, who pointed out that when we get new power sets, it's easily the equivalent of an entire new class in other games, based purely on the fact that we can be Titan Weapons/Invuln and be an ENTIRELY different character from Titan Weapons/Fire or /Willpower. Or Martial Arts/Regen is completely different from MA/SR, or MA/DA. The point is, we aren't just fourteen Archetypes. We're fourteen archetypes times as many power sets as we have times as many pools as we have times as many APP/PPPs as we have. On some level, I knew this already, but having someone say it really brought it into focus.

Actually, missed a function in there. Times Alpha times Judgement times Lore times Interface (oh God times Interface) times Destiny. Incarnate powers changed the game radically for me. And they make it so that really, it's very very hard to end up with two of the exact same character without actively trying (Barcodes, I'm looking at you!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

The first time I made it to level 14 and got fly changed the game for me.

When they changed it so fly could be selected at level 4 once again changed the game for me.

When they set a "debt cap," that changed the game for me.